Articles written by Tom Lumburn

Tom Lumburn|Sep 1, 2016

Giuseppe Bellanca came to New York from Sicily in 1911 with a degree in engineering. By 1914 he was running a flight school at Mineola, NY. One of his students went on to become a Caproni bomber pilot in WWI and later mayor of New York City. That student was Fiorello LaGuardia. Bellanca believed an aircraft's function was to transport people and payloads efficiently. His Columbia high wing monoplane set an endurance record of 51 hours and 11 minutes flown by Clarence Chamberlain and Bert Acosta... Full story